RFID technology has conventionally been used in the identification and tracking of products, equipment, and other articles. For example, RFID systems are commonly used in Electronic Article Surveillance (“EAS”) and in logistical and inventory systems for monitoring goods and equipment and recording information on the target item. An RFID system typically includes an RFID reader and an RFID device such as a tag or label. The RFID reader may transmit a Radio-Frequency (“RF”) carrier signal to the RFID device. The RFID device may respond to the RF carrier signal (or interrogator signal) with a data response signal (or authentication reply signal) encoded with information stored on the RFID device. RFID devices may store information such as a unique identifier or an Electronic Product Code (“EPC”) associated with an article or item.
The RFID technology allows business owners and other persons to rapidly and/or continuously (a) identify products, assets and people, (b) count products, assets and people, and (c) track locations of products, assets and people. As such, the RFID technology offers significant benefits over a physical inventory counting process. By leveraging the RFID technology to increase inventory accuracy, retailers are better able to perform replenishment, service customer requests, manage product recalls or any other activities that rely on inventory data. Products on the market today to aid in determining a product's identification and/or location are too expensive, bulky and/or heavy. For example, some handheld RFID tag readers are bulky, heavy and need to be physically carried by a person through a facility. Cellphone integrated RFID tag readers are expensive since a special dongle is needed for enabling the RFID tag reading operations.
Additionally, fixed RFID tag detachers/deactivators have been an important part of EAS/RFID systems for detaching/deactivating RFID tags after successful purchases of articles coupled thereto. The fixed RFID tag detachers/deactivators are configured to detect only RFID tags being processed by a cashier while ignoring (i.e., filtering them out in the processing or controlling the antenna to have limited read range enough for an intended tag) other RFID tags located in a surrounding environment. This is difficult to obtain due to electromagnetic and RF antenna characteristics (e.g., if the antenna gain/power reduced, the ability to detect badly-oriented and/or loaded RFID tags (i.e., requiring more power to read the RFID tag) is reduced). On the other hand, if the Effective Isotropic Radiated Power (“EIRP”) increases, non-desired RFID tags around the fixed RFID tag detachers/deactivators are detected which increases the processing time and thus slows down the check-out process.
Finally, fixed RFID detacher devices are being designed and built using two different RFID antennas, namely a low-power near-field antenna and a high-power far-field antenna. In these applications, the cashier brings the items (with the RFID tags attached thereto) in close proximity to the antenna in order to detect the RFID tags. This is difficult when the items are large, heavy and/or hard to handle.